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An Amenity for All

Can it be that Academy will finally get a public vote?

Both candidates for first selectman stumped on the promise to move Academy community center to referendum. Both are now newly re-elected town leaders; Peggy Lyons as first selectman and Bruce Wilson as veteran member of the Board of Selectman (BOS). And it looks like they are keeping their promises.

At the Nov. 8 meeting of the BOS, Lyons’s working group presented a process and timeline to bring Academy to referendum in February 2022. Wilson, along with the other experienced members of the BOS, spoke in support and offered suggestions to improve the community center proposal in its final planning stages.

Can it be that 17 years after its closure, Madison residents will finally have a chance to vote on the preservation of this beloved school in the heart of our historic village district?

Fingers crossed.

Save Academy will continue to advocate for this referendum because it saves five acres of town-owned park land and reflects residents’ preferred path from the Great Blue poll—restoration and adaptive reuse of the school as a community center. The model presented to and supported by the public in the Great Blue poll and now advanced by Lyons is a venue for programming, activities, and events.

An Academy community center will be an amenity for all residents and a boon to our downtown commercial district. It’s time to bring this proposal to referendum and let residents decide on the fate of Academy.

Kathryn Hunter

Madison